Tofaş focuses on social responsibility projects that will support social progress through a multidimensional approach, will contribute to the national economy, and will create added value for the community.

Tofaş focuses on social responsibility projects that will support social progress through a multidimensional approach, will contribute to the national economy, and will create added value for the community. Demonstrating its contributions to society on a variety of levels, Tofaş undertakes long-term projects in the areas of sport, education, and culture & art.

SPORT

Tofaş Sports Club

Backed by many years of investment in infrastructure and the infrastructure-focused team model which it has developed, the Tofaş Sports Club continues to nurture new talent for sports in Turkey.

Tofaş Gymnasium

The Tofaş Basketball team plays its home games at the Nilüfer Tofaş Gymnasium in Bursa. These well-attended encounters also contribute to the social life of Bursa’s inhabitants.

Tofaş Next Generation Project

Launched in 2016, the goals of the Tofaş Next Generation Project are to provide all children with an equal opportunity to take part in sports and to foster attitudes and points of view among children that will help them be successful in all aspects of life. The Tofaş Next Generation Project is based on a training and implementation model that focuses on the trainer-family-child triangle in order to foster a generation whose members truly believe that every child should have an equal chance to play basketball.

Since the inauguration of the Tofaş Next Generation Project, about 5,000 children have been reached through fifteen basketball schools set up in different Bursa townships. The little-league basketball teams whose members were chosen from these schools are currently undergoing training at the Mustafa V. Koç Sports Complex. A great many of the members of the Tofaş Sports Club’s little-league teams are raised by the Tofaş Next Generation Project.

An e-learning system has also been set up in order to teach local trainers and children’s families about the project. Other project activities aimed at fostering basketball culture among the general public include street tournaments as well as sport science and creative drama workshops t. As of end-2019, the e-learning system’s training videos had racked up about 140 thousand views by children and their trainers and families. In 2019 itself this figure was 40,000.

 “50 Hoops” Project

With the launch of its “50 Hoops” project in line with its mission to make Bursa “Basketball City” in 2019, the Tofaş Sports Club immediately set about constructing basketball courts in different parts of the province. Last year a total of 40 courts were opened and it is planned to open another 10 in 2020.

Tofaş Basketball Schools

As of 2019, 3,655 children receive basketball training at 18 Tofaş Basketball Schools operating in 10 cities in order to contribute to the community.

Mustafa V. Koç Sports Complex

The premises and facilities of the Tofaş Sports Club Mustafa V. Koç Sports Complex, which opened its doors in 2016, are available not only to Tofaş personnel but also to Bursa’s amateur sports teams and athletes. With 5,800 m2 of space, this complex contains three basketball courts, a fitness center, and a fully-equipped sports rehabilitation center capable of providing whatever forms of physical therapy athletes may require.

EDUCATION

Fiat Laboratories

The “Fiat Laboratory” concept was introduced in 2006 as a component of Koç Holding’s “Vocational Education: A Crucial Matter For The Nation” project. The number of students and teachers taking part in the project at these laboratories reached 2,250 last year.

Under this project, labs are set up and installed in schools to support motor-vehicle technology training and education, instructors are provided with training and attend seminars dealing with particular subjects, and students are provided with support in finding traineeship positions as well as jobs after graduation. Under the “Vocational Education: A Crucial Matter For The Nation” project, students who attend classes at Fiat Laboratories and who satisfy requirements are provided with scholarships every year by the Vehbi Koç Foundation.

In 2019, the term of the existing agreement between Tofaş and the education ministry’s General Directorate for Vocational and Technical Education concerning Fiat Laboratories was extended again. Under this protocol, Tofaş will continue supporting the project in the five schools where it is being conducted for another three years.

Tofaş Science High School

Located in the Demirtaş Organized Industrial Zone in the Özlüce district of Bursa’s Nilüfer township, instruction at Tofaş Science High School began in the 2014-2015 academic year.

Initiated with Tofaş support at Tofaş Science High School, the “Innovation Workshop” aims to support the instruction of well-educated young people who will shape the future of automotive and engineering field in Turkey and serve as its leaders. Having identified it as a “Project That Inspires”, the Ministry of Education has decided to expand the Innovation Workshop program to embrace all science highschools.

“İyiye İşaret”

In 2019 Fiat launched its “İyiye İşaret” digital platform to make it easier for Turkish speakers who have special hearing needs to communicate. Located at engelsizhareket.fiat.com.tr, the “İyiye İşaret” platform provides anyone in Turkey with hearing disabilities with freely-available visual, sign language and subject expression video resources that include the explanation of words and usage of the words in sentence. The goal of this platform is to help people with hearing disabilities to live more normal everyday lives by better understanding what they read and by better expressing themselves through writing. Focusing on 230 words at the outset, the number of words dealt with by the platform was soon increased to 350. Work is currently in progress to gradually bring the number to a thousand or more.

CULTURE & ART

Tofaş Museum of Cars and Anatolian Carriages and Tofaş Art Gallery

Located in Bursa’s Umurbey district, the Tofaş Museum of Cars and Anatolian Carriages is a private museum focusing on the Anatolian transport heritage. A former silk-weaving mill that used to be here was restored and converted for use as a museum by Tofaş. On display at the museum is a historical panorama of the history of human transport in Anatolia beginning with a wheel that is 2,600 years old and extending to the present day with examples of Tofaş-built motor vehicles. The museum opened its doors in 2002 and has received about 800 thousand visitors since then

Located within the same grounds as the museum is the Tofaş Art Gallery housed in the Umurbey Hammam, the original construction of which dates to 1430. To date the gallery has hosted six exhibitions. “The Poise Of The Steelyard: Scales, Weights & Measuring Instruments”, a show with past and present-day examples of such equipment, attracted more than 180 thousand visitors as of end-2019.

Pamukkale Hierapolis archaeological excavations

Since 2005 Tofaş has been sponsoring archaeological excavations at Hierapolis, the extensive ruins of one of the five biggest ancient cities in Turkey. Coterminous with the Pamukkale thermal zone, both Hierapolis and Pamukkale were declared UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1988. Excavation work, which is being overseen by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Denizli governor’s office, continued during the 2019 season with Tofaş’s support. The excavations are being carried out by an international team of about seventy archaeologists, architects, restorers, conservators, and other experts mainly from Italy and Turkey.

Among the other significant Hierapolitan remains that have been unearthed are two necropolises, baths, a basilica, a martyrium, the Frontinus Gate, a gymnasium, an Apollo temple, and the so-called Pluto’s Gate (Plutonium), a shrine sacred to the ancient god of the underworld, Pluto.